Doppelgänged
by vandevere
Summary: Stranges deaths make for interesting investigations...
1. Chapter 1

Doppelgänged

Detectives Briscoe and Green stood over the body on the sidewalk.

The body, a middle-aged stockbroker name of Brent Harvey, had been killed at a hot dog stand.

 _All that red…_ Even Lennie Briscoe felt a touch queasy.

Whoever had killed the man had torn his throat right out; and this in a crowd of people waiting in line for their wieners and soda.

Now, there was considerably more than catsup splashed on the sidewalk and on the hot dog stand.

Lennie wasn't the only one feeling queasy.

"Scores of witnesses," Ed Green complained. "And not a one of them saw the killer. Not even the guy right behind him."

 _He was just standing there, like we all were, waiting to give his order,_ one witness had said. _Then, he just fell over, and there was blood everywhere..._

"Maybe Liz will have an answer," Lennie muttered.

"Yeah…" Ed muttered back. "Cuz, right now, I sure don't."

"She will," Briscoe assured his partner. "She's always come through for us."

…..

"It's not a knife," Liz Rodgers, Chief ME, said. "In fact, it's not any kind of bladed weapon."

"Liz…It sliced his throat wide open," Briscoe looked down at the corpse lying naked on the cold table. "He literally bled out all over that nice sidewalk."

"It wasn't even a razor blade," Rodgers flipped the sheet back over the virtually bloodless corpse. "Closest thing I can think of would be a claw, or talon."

"Mighty big claws to do that kind of damage," Lennie grunted. "None of the witnesses mentioned seeing any kind of creature, let alone one big enough to do… _that_."

"It wouldn't have to be big, Lennie. Even a squirrel could do that kind of damage."

"A squirrel, eh?"

"Well…It… _could_ …"

 _Right…_ Lennie Briscoe thought to himself.

"Okay, so we call Animal Control," he couldn't keep all the snark out of his voice. "And they'll catch the perp for us."

Briscoe's cell phone rang.

"Ed here," Green's voice on the line. "It seems that Brent Harvey hasn't been a very good boy. Arrested three years ago on charges of murdering a prostitute."

"So, how come he's not in prison?" Lennie sort of already knew the answer. "Defense Attorney get all the evidence erased?"

"Yep, and you're gonna _love_ this. He slit her throat. Just like what happened to him."

"Wonderful…And I was just about to call Animal Control when you called."

"Animal Control?"

"Liz says it's claws- "

"Or teeth," Rodgers put in.

"Or teeth," Lennie added.

"An… _animal?_ " Green spoke doubtfully.

"Or someone _training_ animals to kill,"

"Uh…Oh… _man_ …This could bad. _Really_ bad."

"You're telling me?" Briscoe sighed. "Call Van Buren. Let her know what we found. If someone's doing this, who knows where, or how, it will end…"

"Right."

Green hung up. Briscoe watched as Rodgers slid Harvey's sheet-covered body back into its refrigerated cubicle.

Hopefully Animal Control would identify the claw, or bite marks that had killed Brent Harvey.

 _Hopefully there won't be any more cases like this…_

Again, Lennie Briscoe sighed.

 _I'm too old for this…_


	2. Chapter 2

Doppelgänged 2

 _Courthouse_

 _100 Centre Street_

"Do you have a verdict?" Judge Joe Rivera asked the Jury Foreman.

"Yes, Your Honor," the Foreman stated.

Jack McCoy sighed as he waited on the verdict.

Sally Bell had been in rare form over the trial.

 _All our evidence…gone._

 _Anything even faintly resembling a motive…gone._

No surprise, therefore, at the jury's verdict.

"Not guilty." The Jury Foreman made the announcement; and, just like that, Milo Krasinski was going to walk out of here a free man.

Just like that, Sarah Friedman's murder would go unaddressed.

McCoy sighed again as he watched Bell and Krasinski leave the Court Room.

 _To celebrate, no doubt…_

It had always been personal between Jack and Sally. Not least because they had been lovers back in the day…

…..

Outside the courthouse, with her defendant. Savoring yet another victory over Jack McCoy.

It had been a somewhat public trial, so now there was the inevitable crush of reporters trying to cash in on the verdict and bring the story home for the great unwashed masses…

This was Bell's least favorite part of the whole thing, making public statements to a veritable forest of microphones, speaking to a small ocean of upturned faces.

Then, one of those upturned faces blurred…

There was a hissing sound, like an outraged cobra. Bell briefly caught sight of golden eyes, pupils slit like a cat's eye.

Sudden screams erupted, Sally Bell shoved to the side, splattered with something hot and wet.

Kneeling on the sidewalk, looking down at her hands, splattered and smeared with blood.

"Milo?" slowly she turned her head to the right, where Krasinski had been standing just a minute ago.

Eyes staring skyward, pupils dilated…

Dead…

The corpse looked…deflated…somehow, a pool of blood rapidly spreading across the sidewalk pavement…

…..

 _Another one,_ Detective Lennie Briscoe thought irritably as he began the process of canvassing witnesses.

As before, the victim's throat had been torn out, and Briscoe was willing to bet the ME would describe the murder weapon as a _natural weapon_.

 _Teeth or claws…_

This time, the killer had had the brass to kill the Milo Krasinski just minutes after he had been exonerated of Sarah Friedman's murder.

Right in front of the Courthouse, in front of a gaggle to reporters and TV cameras.

 _And Krasinski's Defense Attorney._

Sally Bell was sitting on a nearby bench, a familiar-looking, shabby green jacket thrown around her shoulders, the owner of said shabby green jacket sitting next to her, a comforting arm around her shoulders.

Lennie remembered the stories, about Jack McCoy and Sally Bell; how they had been lovers way back then…

Bell was ash pale; blood on her face and hands, in her hair, her grip on McCoy's hand white-knuckled…

 _In shock…_

"Hate to do this…" he spoke more to McCoy than Bell. McCoy nodded.

"You up to this?" he asked Bell.

"Yeah…" Bell's voice trembled, but she looked up at Briscoe with determined gaze. "I didn't see much. Just an impression of golden eyes, and a hiss…a snake's hiss."

"Golden eyes?"

"Yeah. With pupils like a cat."

"That's…"

"Yeah…I know…" Bell was shivering. "Not any help at all…"

"It's more than the one yesterday."

"Yesterday?" McCoy asked.

"Yeah…Brent Harvey was killed yesterday afternoon, at a hot dog stand, exact same MO, and nobody saw anything."

"Brent Harvey…" McCoy repeated the name. "I prosecuted him."

"I know," Briscoe nodded. "Could be we've got a case of vigilantism."

Still stroking Sally Bell's arm, McCoy spoke softly.

"I hope not, Lennie. They're a blight on society. I trust you'll do your utmost to find him, or her."

"Yeah…But this one is different, Counselor. Right now, it looks like someone is training animals to do the killing. At least that's what Rodgers said concerning Harvey's killing, and _this_ looks like a carbon copy. It's not going to be easy finding the bastard."

McCoy nodded at that.

"Do what you can, Detective Briscoe," he said. "I'm getting Sally out of here. If she remembers anything new, I'll let you know"

Lennie watched as the Executive Assistant helped his adversary to her feet.

Then, he turned back, watching as the EMTs loaded the full body bag into the Coroner's Van.

 _Two murders now, and we don't know any more than we did on the first one._

 _Shit…_


	3. Chapter 3

Sally Bell awakened in a warm bed, soft pillows under her head, warm blankets drawn up and around her.

Problem was, it wasn't her bedroom; and her current attire wasn't hers either.

Tee and sweatpants…

 _Where am I? How did I get here?_

Then, she remembered.

Everything.

A man, Milo Krasinski, had been killed right in front of her.

 _And, Jack…_

Jack McCoy had taken her to his apartment.

Now, it was still dark outside, but dawn was beginning to show through the bedroom windows.

The blood-stained clothes she had been wearing earlier had been packed away in a plastic bag. Another clean set of her own clothing lay on hangers, placed where she would notice them.

 _Jack called Serena,_ Bell remembered. _He had her come over, borrow my apartment keys, and get a set of clean clothes for me._

Then, he had told her to use his shower…

Jack McCoy was probably one of the most confusing men Sally Bell had ever met.

He was demanding, driven, self-centered.

Caring and considerate too.

 _And, when the wind blows North-Northwest, he can be a right bastard…_

But, _this_ …This was Jack in White Knight Mode, charging in to the rescue.

Speaking of Jack McCoy…

 _Where is he?_

Bell got out of the bed, stalked quietly into the other room.

There Jack McCoy was, asleep on the sofa, covered by a sheet, pillow shoved awkwardly under his back and head.

She looked down at him, feeling a brief pang of envy.

 _Jack always had the gift of being able to sleep anywhere…_

That was when McCoy jerked awake. Looking up at her just a little blearily, he presented an interesting sight.

Hair all awry-the ultimate case of bedhead-and unshaven…

"Sally?" clearly not quite awake yet.

"Yes."

McCoy stumbled to his feet, rubbed his face, fingers running through his hair, making his hair even messier than before.

It took all of Sally Bell's will power not to walk up and finger comb that unruly shock of hair back into something resembling order.

Like she used to years ago, when they had been lovers…

"Coffee…" McCoy spoke more to himself than her.

"Good idea," Bell was beginning to get back to her normal self. "I'll use the bathroom while you're making the coffee…"

…..

Later, in the early afternoon…

"Do you remember anything about the attack?" Detective Ed Green sat down with Sally Bell in the Detectives Squad Room.

"Not really, "Sally Bell apologized. "There was this press of people, reporters and cameramen. All these faces looking up at me and Milo. Then…one of those faces blurred. I heard a hiss, saw golden eyes, pupils slit like a cat's, and then there was all this blood, and Milo was dead. That's it."

"One of the faces blurred?" Green prompted. "Did that face have the golden eyes?"

Bell frowned.

"I think it did. But I wouldn't testify to that in a trial."

She sighed.

"Sorry, Ed. That's all I've got."

"No problem, Counselor," Green shrugged. "Lennie's with the ME right now. Maybe Rodgers will have something for us to go on."

…..

"Hate to tell you this, Lennie," Liz Rodgers said. "But Milo Krasinski was killed by the same creature that killed Brent Harvey. I even had animal specialists look at these two cases, and they're stumped too."

"Uh… _specialists?"_ Lennie Briscoe raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah…It's not a cat, dog, squirrel, or chipmunk. It's not even a vampire bat. Whatever it is, it seems to be a brand-new species, one we've never encountered before."

"A new species," Lennie spoke, a dubious look in his eyes. "And it's out killing people the Law failed to put away?"

"I know what it sounds like," Rodgers conceded. "But I can only give you what the science gives me. And science is telling me that a new species is engaging in vigilante activity. What you do with this is entirely up to you."

"Great…" Briscoe muttered. "Now, I have to tell the DA's Office…"

He felt Rodgers hand on his shoulder, a reassuring pat.

"I'm sure you'll find the words," she said. "You always have before."

…..

 _The Vindicator slinks its way quietly through the sewers of Manhattan, seeking its nest, and a few hours of sleep._

 _The last few days have been profitable, two malefactors brought to their eternal reward; their debts paid in blood._

 _Tomorrow, there will be more to do, more malefactors to bring to book._

 _But, tonight, there shall be rest. Tonight, there shall be sleep._


	4. Chapter 4

Animal Control Officer Stanley Shaw wasn't in the best of moods today. He and his fellow officers had been called in to deal with a rather unique situation.

During his career of over twenty years, Shaw had been called upon to deal with all sorts of things; out-of-control dogs, feral cats, rabid squirrels. Even a tiger who had escaped from the Bronx Zoo.

 _This_ , however, was a horse of an entirely different stripe.

"How the hell do they expect us to find the beastie?" Officer Irwin Matthews complained. "They say it's a new species, and no one even know what it looks like!"

"Yeah," Shaw agreed.

Only one thing was known for sure about this…creature. It had very sharp teeth, and/or claws.

Whatever it was, it was sharp enough to exsanguinate a man in mere minutes.

"Any of NYC's Finest helping us out?" Matthews asked.

"Yeah," Shaw nodded. "The 27th Precinct is helping us. They're even sending a couple of their detectives over…"

…..

"Stan, the Man!" Detective Lennie Briscoe was delighted to see they were working with Stanley Shaw.

They had been friends from years back.

"Lennie! Great to see you! This your new partner?"

"Yeah. Ed Green. Meet Stanley Shaw, the best Cat Whisperer in all of Manhattan. So, Stan, where are we off to?"

"The sewers, Lennie."

"Oh, joy…" Briscoe sighed.

Twenty-five minutes later, Lennie Briscoe wished he had thought to bring a nose-plug.

Or even a clothes-pin.

 _It wouldn't take a rocket scientist to predict the sewers would smell of raw sewage…_

Detectives Briscoe and Green, along with a handful of Uniformed Officers, were bringing up the rear.

Animal control Officers Shaw and Matthews were up ahead.

 _Looking for creatures that go bump in the night…_

Briscoe had to admit, the setting made for a very unsettling experience; the smell, the dankness in the air, and the sound of distant, barely audible dripping…

 _I've seen too many horror movies that began just this way…_

He heard a noise up ahead, something going _thump!_

"What's that?" Ed Green had his gun out.

"Don't know…" Briscoe had his gun out too.

"What's going on up there?" he spoke into his communicator.

" _Rats!_ " that was Animal Control Officer Irwin Matthews. "Apart from those, the coast seems clear."

"How about other parts of the sewers?"

"Teams B and C have reported in, Lennie," Stanley Shaw's voice over the communicator. "They've found nothing either. Think it's a bust. Sorry guys. We're coming back."

"Why do I feel like I'm in a Grade-B horror movie?" Ed Green muttered.

"Me too…" Briscoe muttered back as he kept his flashlight centered on the path the Animal Control Officers had taken.

Soon, he heard the comfortingly solid sound of footsteps drawing near, Animal Control Officers Stanley Shaw and Irwin Matthews made their appearance, and Lennie Briscoe let loose a breath he hadn't even realized he'd been holding.

 _Grade-B horror movie indeed…_

"So…nothing?" he asked, more to break the silence than anything else.

Matthews smiled thinly as he held up a trophy…

"What the hell is… _that?_ " Green stared wide-eyed at what had to be a rat Matthews held by the tail.

Goddam thing was the size of a cat…

"They grow them big down here in the sewers," Stanley Shaw smirked as Matthews tossed the dead rat to one side. It hit the ground with a meaty sounding thump.

Green shuddered.

"I am _so_ out of here…" he muttered.

"Agreed," Briscoe nodded vigorously.

"The dark down here is getting on my nerves," he added. "How about pizza at Grimaldi's; on me?"

"Sure," Shaw nodded to. "As long as you're buying…"

…..

 _27_ _th_ _Precinct_

"Lennie!" Ed Green interrupted Lennie Briscoe's first coffee of the day. "They found another one!"

"Another… _what?"_

Briscoe was normally a little quicker than this. But he hadn't had his morning coffee yet…

"Another _body_ ," Green explained. "It's already in the Morgue. Found down in the sewers."

"The _Sewers?"_ Lennie stood, all thoughts of caffeine gone from his mind. "Weren't we there just yesterday?"

Twenty minutes later, the two detectives were down at the Morgue. To Briscoe's surprise, so was Stanley Shaw…

"Stan?"

The Animal Control Officer was staring down at the body on the table.

Animal Control Officer Irwin Matthews. The corpse was virtually bloodless, the rent in the throat clearly visible.

"He must have gone back to the sewers," Shaw commented. "When did he die?"

"Somewhere between two to four PM," Liz Rodgers replied.

"That's not possible," Shaw objected. "That's when we left the sewers. We stopped for pizza, wound up making a night of it. We called it a night around Nine PM. Winnie was with us, and he was fine."

"Sorry, guys," Rodgers was adamant. "This is Irwin Matthews. We finger-printed him, and Dental records also confirm his identity. He died around two to four PM."

Lennie Briscoe stood, staring down at the body.

 _If this is Matthews, who the hell did we have pizza with?_


	5. Chapter 5

Doppelgänged 5

 _1 Hogan Place_

"Let me get this straight," Nora Lewin looked across her desk at her Executive Assistant, and _his_ Assistant. "There's this…new, never-before-seen species, one possibly capable of chameleon-like mimicry; and it's running around killing people _we_ failed to put away. Have we suddenly landed in a Sci-Fi movie?"

"Uh…" Jack McCoy didn't quite know how to answer that. This case was attracting international interest. But not from the kind of specialists he was most familiar with.

A full score of entomologists-from the Smithsonian, no less-had descended upon the District of Manhattan.

 _Like a plague of…_

"Insects…" he finally said, trying to ignore the pun his subconscious was trying to foist on him. "They say it's insects."

" _Bugs?"_ Serena Southerlyn spoke dubiously.

"Rather hard to believe," Lewin put in. "Whatever it is, it apparently killed an Animal Control officer."

"And then had pizza with his boss, _and_ Detectives Briscoe and Green; and all of this while lying dead in the sewers," McCoy looked down at the open folder in his hands. "Maybe we _have_ landed in a Sci-Fi movie…"

"Not funny…" Serena muttered. "How do you prosecute an insect? What do you use to force a deal? Raid?"

"First, we talk to the Specialists from the Smithsonian," Lewin said. "Then we, and the 27th, decide on a course of action. Peoples' lives are at stake."

…..

Nora Lewin was right, of course. But the presence of entomologists on this case bothered Jack McCoy.

Dr. Laura Hill looked at least fifteen years younger than her given age of thirty-eight, and her bubbly, wide-eyed school-girl vibes didn't help. Quite frankly, her bubbly persona set Jack McCoy's teeth on edge.

"We've found some unusual skeletons out in Africa!" she spoke enthusiastically. "In the jungles of Kenya. The bones looked humanoid, but there was something interesting about them."

She paused here, clearly expecting the attorney to say something. McCoy waited her out.

Finally, Hill spoke again, disappointment clear in her voice.

"The bones were made of highly reinforced chitin; which actually made them stronger than human bone. Whatever these creatures were, they had made the evolutionary leap from exoskeletons-which is how current insects evolved-to a skeletal structure more in line with the skeletal structure of Mammals and Amphibians; and that is… _huge!"_

McCoy knew he was going to regret this.

"How is this huge?" he reluctantly asked.

"The exoskeleton is a limiting factor controlling size," Hill was really warming to her subject. "That's why insects are so small, compared to the rest of the animal order. It was the _endoskeleton_ that set Mammals and Amphibians free to grow larger."

Hill paused, then delivered the bombshell.

"The area where we found the bones had been abandoned recently. To put it bluntly, it was a hive. The bones indicated that, like most Social insects-ants and bees-that these creatures had a hierarchal structure; Workers, Defenders, and the Queen. We used advanced protocols to determine what these creatures might look like."

She handed Jack McCoy a folder, and he looked through it.

The first photograph, titled _Worker_ , featured a diminutive creature, childlike of build with an over-sized head. It had huge black eyes, a tiny mouth, and a virtually non-existent nose.

"A Bug-eyed Alien?" the words slipped out of him.

"Otherwise known as a _Gray Alien_ , or a Little Green Man." Dr. Hill agreed. "The Kenyan natives in the area where we found the hive had a whole slew of myths and legends about these creatures. Especially about what we would call the Queen. They called it _Blood Avenger_. Apparently, it didn't take kindly to murder."

Jack McCoy looked at the other two photographs. The one titled _Defender_ was terrifying enough. Tall, sturdy, with four arms; each ending in sharp talons.

The Queen, however, was the stuff of nightmares. It looked remarkably like the title character in _Alien_. Dr. Laura Hill was still talking.

"The creature involved in the killings is unlikely to be a defender," she said. "The Defender's only job is to defend the hive. Your Animal control Officer was probably killed by a Defender; although it's not likely the Defender did the impersonating. Only the Queen had the necessary muscular and skeletal adaptations in both main body and skull, to change its shape and face like that."

"So," McCoy spoke slowly. "We have a hive of… _those_ …in the sewers of Manhattan."

"Yes, Mr. McCoy," Hill nodded. "And there is worse for me to tell you."

"What could be worse than what you've just told me?"

"Just something our specialists hypothesize based on skull sizes. They're sentient. Possibly even on our level."

 _Now_ , Jack McCoy had to sit down.

 _An order of insects evolved to our size, and our level of intelligence…_

As Lennie Briscoe might have said, _Shit just got real…_


	6. Chapter 6

Sewers _of Manhattan_

The next investigation into Manhattan's sewers was a rather more militarized affair than the last; with a full complement of Marine Reservists accompanying the Animal Control Officers, and some of the entomologists from the Smithsonian too.

That was all to the good, as far as Detective Lennie Briscoe was concerned.

"Where's Doctor Hill?" he asked Dr. Hill's Assistant, Alvin Craig. "Oversleep?"

"She's with one of your ADAs," Craig shrugged awkwardly. "Think she said Jack McCoy…"

And, now they were all here, deep in the sewers of Manhattan; everyone armed to the teeth.

The commanders of the investigatory force-including Lieutenant Anita Van Buren-had been blunt with their orders.

 _If it doesn't belong in the sewers, shoot first. Ask questions later…_

Lennie Briscoe, and his partner, Ed Green, both had guns out and ready.

"Found something, over here!" That was Stanley Shaw's voice over the police radio.

…..

Ed Green's heart was in his throat. Everyone was converging on Shaw's position, guns out, ready to shoot. And no wonder…

 _Last time we were down here, we wound up having pizza with the killer masquerading as Irwin Matthews. Hope it's not masquerading as Shaw this time._

The place, far back in the deep recesses of the sewers, smelled awful. It took everything Green had not to gag at the fetid aroma; and he remembered a conversation he'd had some time ago, in the Morgue.

 _Eventually, you get used to the smell,_ Liz Rodgers had said.

 _No, you don't!_ was Green's instinctive response.

No…there was no getting used to the smell of rotting flesh.

The place was messy, lots of things toppled over' like someone had been living there, and left in a hurry. But those toppled-over items didn't look quite right. They looked… _organic_. They reminded Green of honey-comb although the holes…egg slots…were much larger.

"They were here!" Alvin Craig pointed at the things on the floor. "Egg cases! The Workers harvested the eggs, as many as they could take, and took off."

"So now we have to chase them all over Manhattan's sewers?" Briscoe sounded weary.

"No," Craig shook his head as he pointed. "They also harvested the Queen Egg too. Looks like they're pulling up stakes and leaving town."

Green stared at the…Queen Egg. It was about the size of a large dog.

"Who did Laura Hill say she was with again?" There was a slight tremble in Alvin Craig's voice.

"Jack McCoy," Briscoe said. "Why?"

"You might want to give him a call, and find out where he is right now."

Alvin Craig was looking down at a body lying near the empty Queen Egg.

Dr. Laura Hill; body virtually bloodless, a gaping hole in her throat.

"She must have gone down here alone last night."

…..

 _1 Hogan Place_

The day was sunny and warm, and the hot dog stand was doing great business.

Jack McCoy had elected to take his lunch there. Laura Hill didn't seem to mind the wieners and soda either.

 _She's intelligent, and educated. Too bad she's got that teenage cheerleader vibe going on…_

"How often does your office succeed in putting criminals away?" she looked over her soda as she spoke.

"Not as well as I would like," McCoy admitted. "The constitutional checks and protections make our job more difficult. But those protections are there for a reason…"

 _To protect innocent people…_

He had accidentally gotten innocent people convicted before; and it was always hard to undo a Jury Conviction.

"We try to do our best," he said to the entomologist. "We don't always succeed."

His cell phone rang.

"Excuse me," McCoy stood, and stepped away from Hill as he answered the phone.

"McCoy here."

"Jack?" Briscoe's voice on the other end. "Is Laura Hill with you?"

"Yeah, she's-"

"Don't say anything, Jack. Just nod. That's not Laura Hill. Laura Hill is down in the sewers. Dead. Understand?"

Back to Hill, mouth suddenly dry as dust. It took everything McCoy had not to look back, just to check that she was still there.

He could barely hear Briscoe's voice over the thudding sound of his own heart pounding in his ears.

"Where are you?" Briscoe's gravelly voice anchored him, gave him a lifeline of hope.

"Hogan Place," voice trembling only a little. "The hot dog stand."

"Stay on the line, Jack. We're coming."

McCoy kept his phone to his ear, looking around, for possible escape routes, just in case she…

Just in case.

"Jack?" Hill had stood. "What's wrong?"

Jack McCoy wanted to tell her nothing was wrong. But he was sure she would see the lie.

"Ah…" Laura Hill stood, and suddenly, that teenage schoolgirl vibe was gone. "I see. I'm sorry you had to learn this. You know…don't you?"

Through the phone at his ear, he could hear Lennie's voice.

"Almost there, Jack. Hang on…"

Thing was, McCoy wasn't sure he had the time.

On that instant…

Hill's eyes went Gold, pupils slit like a cat, and her mouth opened. McCoy moved; not quite fast enough. A jolt of agony in his right shoulder, his arm suddenly numb, and now he was down on the concrete, legs gone out from under.

"Police! Freeze!"

The cavalry had arrived. Laura Hill no longer looked like Laura Hill.

McCoy heard screams and shouts. And gunfire…

The… _thing_ …standing there nowreminded McCoy of a Praying Mantis. Impossibly long limbs, splaying in impossible directions. Body jerking as a spray of bullets brought it down.

Not that McCoy was in any condition to celebrate.

His vision was dimming, the rest of his body going numb.

"Jack!" Lennie's voice. "Stay with me, Counselor!"

Something pressing against his numb right shoulder, sudden agony shooting down his entire right side.

"Keep applying pressure, Detective" another man's voice impinged on McCoy's awareness. "The ambulance is here."

"Your ride's here, Jack. I'm going with you…"

It was Lennie Briscoe's voice that kept Jack McCoy anchored, kept him _alive_ though the trip to the hospital, talking about his daughter, her husband and kids- _I'm too young to be a grandfather!_ -prattling on about the Yankees and the Mets, and _how about those Dodgers…_

When he opened his eyes again, he was in a curtained off alcove, oxygen cannulas up his nose, his right arm and shoulder immobilized, wrapped up in bandages and gauze, and an IV Tube quietly delivering blood into his left arm. Lennie Briscoe was sitting by his side, quietly reading the Sports Section of the New York Times. The detective must have heard something. He put the paper down.

"Jack! You're awake."

"Yeah."

"You were lucky, Counselor," Briscoe bent over him. "Whatever she hit you with hit you in the shoulder, and you still almost bled out on us."

"She was facing me, Lennie." McCoy remembered that. "It was her tongue, I think. When she opened her mouth, I moved as fast as I could. Laura Hill…The _real_ one was down in the sewers?""

"Alvin Craig, her assistant, said she must have gone to the sewers alone," Briscoe explained. "A remarkably stupid thing to do. But that's scientists for you."

"The hive was found?"

"Abandoned," Briscoe said. "Craig thinks they left Manhattan. The bug specialists are going to try to track them down. But we can rest easy. Whatever they were, those things aren't here anymore."

McCoy looked up at the ceiling.

"I hope I never see them again," he muttered.

"Me too," there was a fervent tone in Lennie's voice.

…..

 _Chicago, Illinois_

The sewers here were a little different from the sewers back home in Manhattan; a little newer. But the Workers found it relatively easy to set up the new hive.

The sudden move hadn't disrupted anything important. The New Queen had hatched just the day before. She was already beginning to come into her own, the previous Queen's sudden death thrusting maturity upon the new Queen at a much younger age that was customary.

But the Workers were efficient, and food-even here, in such a new place-was relatively easy to come by.

There was one right there, Human, unshaven, with smelly, dirty clothes.

Surely, the humans wouldn't miss such a one as that...


End file.
